Revenue has been steadily increasing, but with increasing competition on the cable business from other forms of entertainment, there is a strong potential for revenue to stagnate. Meanwhile, the company has over $20B in debt which may become more expensive as interest rates increase. It is trading at more than 5 times book value, too expensive for my tastes without stronger growth potential.

TWC, Comcast, and CableVision have withstood the threat posed by Verizon and AT&T. The Q2 earnings from Verizon & T followed by Comcast, Cablevision, and TWC show all are gaining RGUs inline or ahead of expectations. This is a story of the Telco Customer dis-service mind set that has kept telcos from successfully delivering video for the last 15 years despite telcos having a more robust technology for delivery of service. The BellSouth fiasco in the late 1990's used Microwave, Coax, fiber, and finally satellite to try to deliver video service. BellSouth threw in the towel, noticed only by the few video customers they had left when they received a letter informing them that BellSouth would be discontinuing service at the end of 2001. Now Verizon's FIOS is the current diamond bullet that will kill cable. FIOS could be a serious threat but not when the Union representing Verizon workers threatens a strike and pickets Verizon offices in NYC two days after Verizon announces FIOS service launch in NYC. Meanwhile, buried deep in the transcript of TWC's earnings conference call held on August 6th 2008, there is a mention of "sale backhaul". Transcribed correctly, this would read Cell Backhaul. So while Verizon is beating it's FIOS drum, TWC is quietly inking deals with the likes of Verizon Wireless and others to provide Carrier class cellular backhaul service over TWC fiber infrastructure to carry traffic of Cellular phone service providers from cell tower to public phone switching networks. The network following around the Verizon Wireless phone customer in the TV (who are they? That's my Network) commercials should show a fleet of Time Warner Cable bucket trucks and technicians instead. "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?" What's not to love about TWC?

I can't go 5 mins without seeing an ad for TW cable on CABLE. This tells me that something is wrong. In WI they have tried to diversify into different markets but make it almost impossible to have individual services without having the other two. This dilutes the whole idea of diversification. Although Direct TV sucks, I can TW being overrun by other compititors in areas with more compitition. WI will soon be one of these places with a new bill that will breakdown the barriers of Cable monoplization. Unless TW can increase their customer service satisfaction and allow for more package options, I don't see this going anywhere but down.